Times 125th Anniversary

Nov. 17, 1913: Los Angeles Police Chief Charles Sebastian placed a badge on Chinese immigrant Lung Yep, who "stepped from the comparative obscurity of a clerkship in Sing Fat's store into the authority of a star and a club," The Times reported. He became, the newspaper said, "the first Chinese ever to be so invested in the United States or in the entire Occident, so far as the police records of the continent show." His appointment followed an investigation of conditions in Chinatown.

Nov. 16, 1951: "An embarrassed Pasadena Board of City Directors ... decided that they have no moral right to display 'war loot' in the City Hall foyer," The Times reported. "So the Japanese temple bell which was brought to the Crown City aboard the USS Pasadena at the conclusion of World War II will somehow be returned to its rightful home." The city's decision was prompted by a letter from 1st Lt. David C.

Nov. 15, 1903: A boy who said he was "not quite 11 years old" was in "a tramp's cell in the City Jail" after making his way, he said, back home to California from New Orleans. The Times described Carl Edward Lecody under the headline "Would 'Lots Ruther' Go to School; Lilliputian Hobo Says He's Sick of Tramping It."

Nov. 14, 1891: A business owner decided to test the city's parking regulations, The Times reported, under the headline "Will Make a Test Case; the Right to Tie Animals on the Street to Be Tested." "Ex-City Engineer Fred Eaton set rather a singular criminal case in motion before Justice Owens of the Police Court. Mr. Eaton sets forth in his complaint that two men named S.

Nov. 13, 1966: Gloria Parker, an employee in the Van Nuys post office, decided she wanted a more active career and applied to transfer to the post office near her Burbank home as the city's first female mail carrier. She was hired as a substitute, filling in for other carriers on their days off, The Times reported.

Nov. 12, 1937: "More than 600 automobile owners have reported their cars damaged by the acid rain which followed aerial smoke screen maneuvers over the city by 12 Army planes ... and more complaints are coming in," The Times said. Major insurance firms met to assess the problem. S.H. Bucholtz of the Fire Companies Adjustment Bureau said: "The loss may total many thousands of dollars." The insurers said they would ask the government to pay for the claims.

Nov. 9, 1917: Los Angeles would supply more than 2,000 recruits for the U.S. Army's camouflage divisions, mostly "from the ranks of motion-picture scene painters and carpenters," The Times reported under the headline "They Fool You Every Day; Will They Fool the Germans?" Milton Moore, technical director of the Universal Film Co., told the newspaper, "We can build fake villages in 48 hours -- villages that we will defy an airman to detect.

Nov. 8, 1908: More and more tourists would soon be heading to California, The Times reported under the headline "Westward Turns Tourist Tide, Direction of Travel Toward Sunny California, Wealthy Easterners Will 'See' This State Rather Than 'Do' Europe." "That there is a general change in the disposition of wealthy tourists to give up going abroad and to spend some time in seeing the sights and enjoying the climate of their own country, is the report that O.L.

Nov. 7, 1991: "With an announcement that stunned the nation, Earvin 'Magic' Johnson, the brilliant guard who was the marquee name for the Lakers and the National Basketball Assn. for 12 years, retired ... saying he had tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS," The Times reported. "Johnson, 32, was characteristically upbeat when he made the announcement at a packed news conference at the Forum in Inglewood.